“LOST MUSKET DIARY” December 7, 2015: 74 Years to
the Date
Fair, Sunny with Clouds 74°F/23°C in Rancho Santa
Margarita
Buongiorno,
[Today's blog originally posted on the anniversary Sunday in 2014 of the December 7th 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I post this annually to honor those who were at Pearl Harbor on that fateful Sunday, and to say "Thank You For Your Service" to all veterans who have so faithfully served this nation in peacetime and wartime.]
Sunday Morning! Sunny. Just like it was on that
other Sunday December 7th, the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
called, “A Day That Will Live in Infamy.”
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| USS ARIZONA BB-39 |
In
their all-out attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the key targets for the
Japanese were the battleships. They sank Arizona, Virginia and Utah., the USS
Arizona still rests on the bottom, a war grave with more than a thousand
valiant souls still aboard. In the midst of all of this flame and carnage, one
scrappy destroyer escaped to fight another day, and took her fair measure of
vengeance on the attackers. She was the destroyer USS Jarvis (DD 393) and on
board was a young Quartermaster named Harry Schulz who would one day follow the
lead of his ship’s namesake and disobey a direct order during the heat of
battle to become one of the true heroes of World War II.
Lest
his name be completely lost to history, let me introduce you to Midshipman
James C. Jarvis. Three U.S. Destroyers have carried his memory into battle:
Jarvis I DD 38 which saw combat in World War I, Jarvis II DD 393 which escaped
the Pearl Harbor attack, and Jarvis III, DD 799, which saw service from the end
of World War 2 through the Vietnam War before it was decommissioned and given
to the Spanish Navy. Midshipman Jarvis was born in 1787 and appointed as a
Midshipman from the State of New York in 1799. As was the custom of the day,
Midshipman Jarvis went to sea aboard the famed frigate Constellation. During
its battle with the French frigate La Vengeance Deux in February 1800 young
Jarvis was sent aloft to secure the ship’s mainmast. At one point he was
ordered down for fear the mast might topple. He yelled down, “My post is here.
I can’t leave it.” The mast crashed down and Jarvis went over the side with the
rigging and was drowned. He was 13 years old.
On
the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, the second destroyer Jarvis was moored
next to another
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| USS JARVIS DD-393 |
destroyer, the USS Mugford DD 389 and their tender, USS
Sacramento, 1914 vintage gun boat. The “after action” reports of all three ships
show the Japanese attack beginning at 0758 on that Sunday morning. General
Quarters was immediately sounded and all three destroyers opened fire on the
attacking aircraft with anti-aircraft machine guns and their five inch guns.
The ship’s log notes that the machine guns commenced firing at 0804 hrs., with
the five inch gun firing the first shot of any five inch gun in the harbor 60
seconds later. The USS Jarvis was credited with shooting down four enemy
aircraft during its escape from Ford Island to the open sea. It is believed
that Jarvis was the first to draw enemy blood on that bloody Sunday. Among the
seamen receiving
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| HARRY N SCHULTZ, USN |
special commendation for their action during the attack was
Quartermaster First Class Harry Niel Schultz, who had been with the Jarvis
since it was commissioned in 1937.
Schultz was later given a commission and
eventually commanded the LST that my dad sailed on in WW2. But, on December
7th, Schultz, a career peacetime Navy enlisted man, was aboard the Jarvis. The
Jarvis fought its way to the open sea and safety. Its gunners shot down four
enemy warplanes and evaded the attackers’ efforts to sink it and block the
harbor entrance.
Schultz
and the Jarvis survived Pearl Harbor, and about two weeks later Jarvis left
Pearl Harbor with the carrier Saratoga to join the Task Force assigned to
relieve the Japanese attack on Wake Island, but, in a controversy that resounds
to this day, that mission was scuttled and the Japanese took the island on
December 23rd. In January 1942, while on an anti-submarine patrol the Jarvis
rescued 182 survivors of a Japanese torpedo attack on the fleet oiler Neces. By
July, 1942, Schultz and the Jarvis were on their way to the Solomon Islands to
take part in the invasion of Guadalcanal on August 7th. The transport ships
that Jarvis was escorting came under a heavy attack and the destroyer was
torpedoed in spite of the fact that only 9 of the 26 attacking Japanese planes
were able to penetrate the American defenses. After the battle the ship moved
to Tulagi where seven wounded crewmen were transferred to a hospital on shore.
Quartermaster Harry Schultz went ashore with them to make sure they were cared
for. That assignment saved his life.
The Jarvis’ skipper, Lt. Comdr. William Graham,
Jr. ordered the ship to steam for Sydney Australia for repairs. Shortly after,
she steamed across “Iron Bottom Sound” and ran into the approaching fleet of
Japanese Admiral Mikawa’s heavy cruisers, which had mistaken the destroyer for
an American heavy cruiser. As she continued to steam westward, the Japanese
again attacked her with a force of 31 planes, raking her with machine gun fire
and torpedoes. USS Jarvis went to the bottom of Iron Bottom sound at 1 o’clock
in the afternoon on August 9th with all hands. Brothers Billy and Lans Wilson
were among the 233 crew members who died that day. Quartermaster Harry Schultz
went on to a new assignment.
Rising from the ranks Schultz earned his
commission in 1944, and took command of US LST 920, a landing ship that saw
action from the beaches of Normandy to the invasion of Okinawa back in the
Pacific. He was one of only three
members of the crew of 110 or so who had ever been to sea. Schultz’ executive
officer was my father, Lt. Charles Botula, Jr. But unlike my dad, Harry Schultz
didn’t talk about his wartime experiences.
On August 14, 1944, the LST 920 and its sister
ship the LST 921 were sailing in a convoy across Bristol Channel about 70 miles
from Lands’ End, England. At 4 p.m. the LST 921 was struck by a torpedo and
broke in two, the aft portion sinking.
Half the crew was lost. A second torpedo launched by the attacking U667
was aimed at the 920. My dad recalls seeing the torpedo’s wake, but a British
escort vessel came between the attacker and
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| Radioman Fred Benck |
his ship and was blown out of the
water. Standing orders were for all ships to remain with the convoy if
attacked. Captain Schultz ordered Radioman Fred Benck to send a message to the
convoy commander. "WHO IS PICKING
UP SURVIVORS?” The reply was an order, “DO NOT BREAK CONVOY!" This message
was delivered to the captain. In about two minutes, he came into the Radio Room
and ordered Benck to send the message again. This time he waited for the answer
which was "DO NOT BREAK CONVOY!" As Benck told me years later, “H N
SCHULTZ then used these words, ‘TO HELL WITH HIM’ and we pulled out of convoy
to turn back and pick up Survivors! A message came from the Commander of the
convoy to get back in the convoy. The message was never answered!”
Like the Wilson brothers on the Jarvis at
Guadalcanal two brothers were serving on the two LSTs in the convoy. One of the
Forty-seven crewmembers of the LST 921 pulled on board the 920 was Seaman
Gerald F. Hendrixson, the twin brother of LST 920 crew member Harold
Hendrixson. Thanks to Harry Schultz, the Hendrixson brothers both made it
through their ordeal. A few days later
Captain Schultz was called before a court martial but later cleared of any
charges. Many years later I learned from Schultz’ family and friends that
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| Attacking U-boat U 667 |
he had
never gotten over the loss of his shipmates at Guadalcanal, and he was not
going to let any more good sailors die if he could help them even if it meant
disobeying orders. Shultz’ left his command of the LST 920 in 1946, stayed in
the Navy after the war, and eventually retired as a Commander. Two of the
officers from the 920 that I talked with in researching this story told me that
Schultz always “kept a certain distance” from his officers and crewmembers.
Knowing about his earlier career as I did, I realized that he had already lost
one shipboard “family” in the war, and he probably didn’t want to form any
close personal ties with his new one. And, my dad, who was on the bridge at the
time of the U-boat attack, never knew why his “Skipper” disobeyed orders that
August afternoon. He said he was “stunned” when Captain Schultz broke that
convoy rule and gave the order to and come about.
A
few months later, Captain Harry Schultz and LST 920 sailed through the Panama Canal and on into
the Pacific Ocean. Next stop? Pearl Harbor on route to the invasion of Okinawa
and the end of World War 2.
Ciao, MikeBo
